Fort Worth daily gazette. (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1882-1891, 1887-02-20
ELECTION OUTRAGES.
Witnesses % Appear Before the Senate
COpmi'tee-A Deiegh ion OF Farm
ers and Merchants.
Statements Concerning the Recent Pc
liticai Troubles in Washington
County, Tex.
st.Louts Globe Democrat, Feb. A..

When the Missouri Pacific passenger
train from the west drew into the UnioI
depot yesterday morning at G:30 o'clock
Ex-Governor John Ireland of Texas
stepped from the sleeping car Dolphin
followed by small procession of twenty
eight other Texans; and, guided by
Travelling Passenger Agent j. L. A
Thomas of the Bee Line, the party made
their way outside to the street, where
carriages were waiting their arrival tC
take them to the Southern hotel
for breakfast. All of them were
tcftiZens of Washington, Grimes
Snd Guadalupe counties; all OF
1ithem, including the two colored
Il men who walked across the platform be,
hind the rest were professional men, bus
mess men or farmers, and all of them
were on their way to Washington for the
purpose of denying before a Senate inves-
tigatlng committee the charges of cleo
ton outrages against the citizens of
Washington county by those Republicans
who had fed from the county since the
last election, and going to Washington,
! had appealed to the Senate for eXamina
ton into what they called a political reign
of terror existing in that part
of Texas. These charges grew out of a
hot political campaign in Washington
county last fall. The Republicans were
running a straight ticket, and the Demo
Gratis were supporting what they called q
Peoples ticket. The most active Repub-
lIcans in the county were S. A. Hack
worth, j. L. Moore and Carl SchuetZe,
and Shuetze WAS candidate on the Re-
publican ticket for County Judge. Two
other energetic workers for the Republi-
can ticket were Ed Lockett and Lonny
Glider, who was a brother-in-law of
Moore.
The election was close, the negroes to
a man supporting the Republican ticket,
and there was great excitement at every
precinct in the county. After the hour
for the closing of the polls, Devices Boil
ton, a young man whose father was q
candidate for County Commissioner on
the Peoples ticket, rode up to the vot-
ing precinct in Washington county to get
the returns, and dismounting, hitched his
horse and went forward to the poll. 1t is
said by some that he was masked and
armed and by others that he was not.
The hall was occupied almost entirely by
colored men, and as ne Knocked on the
door was greeted with q shout Of "come
in,n from the inside. He threw open
the door, and as ne did SC, bis
body was riddled with the buck
shot from two barrels OF a shotgun,
tiredtogether by a C5lored man named
PARK Hill, standing ia the back part OF
the room. Bolton fell scross the threshold
of the door and died almost instantly.
.sEFhe judges aud clerks and spectators IL
81 side, white and colored, fed precipitately
scattering the unCounted ballots all over
the floor, and making no attempt to hold
the murderer or examine the body Of
Bolton. Olly one man remained in the
room. and through him the story ran from
house to house in the county that night.
The whites organized q pursuing party,
and by nightfall of the next day they had
captured eight OF the negroes who were
in the room on that night of the murder,
among them Alfred and Stewart Jones and
Shad Fielder. The murderer Hill was not
captured for week.
THREATS OF LYNCHING.
From the day of the murder until his
arrest the people of the country were in
state of violent excitement, and this
feeling was intensified by the declaration
OF the frightened negroes at the Coroner
inquest that they had been ordered by
| the Republicans of the county on the
afternoon of election day to shoot the
first white man that showed his face st
the polls after they were closed. There
were loud and earnest threats of lynch
ing the prisoners, and the auth critics
thought it best to remove them all from
the county Jail at Brennan, the county
seat. The murderer, Hill, was sent
10 the jail in Milam county,
ard the eight other negroes,
charged with completely in the
crime, were sent to Houston. When the
County Commissioners of Washington
county thought hat he lawiess feeling in
the couGiy hat died cg. sufficiently, .Llv
had the eight minor offenders bought
pack to tn jail il BRENNAN. but left the
murderer hil) in Houston. Two days
after moo broke into the mil, took out
Shad Fielder and the two Jones brothers,
and hung them. The action appeared
significant to Uackworth, Moore and
Schuetze, and they closed up all the bust
ness they had in the county and lett the
state. The first intimation the citizens
of the county had that the three had not
forgotten the events of the election was
the memorial TO Congress presented in
the Senate by Senator Uawley Of CJunec-
tICut.
RASIS CT THE INVESTIGATE ON.
In that memorial the three represented
! themselves as eXpatriated by political
abuse and imposition and threats upon
their lives, and described election day in
the country as one of general bull
doing OF Republicans by Democrats.
The country was said to be one in which
no Republican could live with safety,
and an Investigation into affairs there
was asked. The Senate referred the
memorial TO its committee on privileges
and elections, which in tu,n referred it
to subcommittee consisting of Senators
Evarts, Eustis, Pugh, Teller and
| Spooner. The Washington county peo-
| pie then began to make preparations to
defend themselves and the reputation OF
their county, and Ex-Governor ireland,
whose county, Guadalupe, adioins Wash
| ington, was called into service to assist
them. Arrangements were made at first
| to caTry rIty-tive witnesses to Washing
ton to maintain the peaceable character
of Washington county citizens, but the
Senate committee limited the number to
! thirty, and the list was accordingly made
up OF that number of residents of Wash
I ington county, Guadalupe county and
Grimes county, which also bounds Wash
ington county. When the company took
the cars for Washington at Brenham Fri
day night their roll was as follows:
Ex-Governor Ireland, Congressman
d. c. GIddingS, eX-State Representative
william Thompson, John Levin, Benja-
min S. Rogers, B. Eldridge, Robert Hoff-
man, W. W. SeaTcy, William Perry, 81.
NJ. Lewis, F. Fisher, II. Fisher, Henry